As our custom is, we will close this conference gathering around
the Lord's table. The meeting will not be prolonged for that,
those of you who have a long way to go, need not be anxious about
time. If you are the Lord's child, we welcome you to join with us
in this remembrance of Him. Now we come to the last fragment for
this time of this contemplation of the Lord's Servant and the
nature and meaning of the Lord's service.

"Behold, My Servant"

I turn you for this last word to the prophecies of Isaiah,
chapter 49. Chapter 49 of Isaiah's prophecies: "Listen, oh isles,
unto me; and hearken, ye peoples, from far: the Lord hath called
me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath He made
mention of my name: and He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me; and He hath made me a
polished shaft in His quiver, in His quiver hath He kept me close:
and He said unto me, Thou art My servant; Israel, in whom I will
be glorified."

Here then, is one more, and for this time, the last of this
series of conceptions of the Servant of the Lord, and His service:
"He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His
hand hath He hid me; and He hath made me a polished shaft, in His
quiver hath He kept me close... Thou art My servant".

Now these remaining chapters of this book are not easy to
expound, for one reason in particular, that there is very little
clear definition as to who is in view. It is very difficult as you
move through to see and recognise to whom the various passages
refer. Sometimes it's perfectly clear, as in 52, 53, and 61 -
there is no doubt about it there that it is the coming Messiah,
the Christ. At other times it looks to be like Israel, and then
you find that, even there, it's not so clear and not so sure.

For instance this very chapter, this very chapter is like that,
as you see. You go on to the chapter, in the chapter, and you have
words like these: "It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be
My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob" - that cannot be
Israel raising himself up; "and to restore the preserved of
Israel" - that cannot be Israel doing that to himself. "I will
also give thee for a light to the Gentiles" - we are more familiar
with that, aren't we? "A light to lighten the Gentiles" - the
words of Simeon concerning the Lord Jesus Himself. "Thou
mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth" - well, we are
able to identify that One. And yet, in the whole setting, it seems
to move from the one to the other. Now, I am not going to attempt
to disentangle that, and to give you the clear dividing lines,
indeed, it is not my intention to engage in an exposition of these
chapters at all.

For as brief a time as I can use this evening, I just want to get
hold of this one conception of the servant of the Lord, be he the
original thought of the Israel, the whole nation; be he the
Messiah, or be he the remnant; be he the whole church, or be he
the church within the church. That does not matter so much to me
and to us this evening, the point is: what is this Divine
conception of the servant and his service, as viewed here? We have
said that there are many conceptions of the servant in this book
and we have been looking at a few of them, over the last two days
especially. Here is another one: "He hath made my mouth like a
sharp sword... He hath made me a polished shaft".

A Sharp Sword - A Polished Shaft

That is what the Lord intends His servant, His servants, and
their service to be. With all the other things that it, and they,
may be, this is one of the things. Not the only thing, but it is
here, and it is to be taken note of.

A sharp sword ... a polished shaft! And I think we should all say
that the element associated with those symbols is that of incisiveness.
A sharp sword and a polished shaft are no neutral things, no
in­definite things; they speak of something having an edge and a
point - something that registers, and really does have an effect.
That is the over-all feature of such things. And at once we pass
to the service that the church is intended to fulfil for God, and
if it fails, the service that the church within the church, that
company within the nominal that is the real, and that
really does answer to God's thought, the service that it
will fulfil, it will be like this: it will be present not only in
this world and on this earth, amongst men, but as in the
heavenlies amongst other hostile forces as something that
registers; something that cuts in, something that pierces,
something that counts and tells - a sharp sword, and a polished
shaft.

That, dear friends, is what the Lord intends us to be as His
servants. And again, that is what He intends not only individuals
to be, but His church in representation in any place. Now, from
another standpoint, it is quite right that any company of the
Lord's people should be a very loving, happy little fellowship,
enjoying Him, and enjoying one another and going on mildly and
very pleasantly, and having a nice time - everybody saying what
nice people they are; what a lot of love there is amongst them,
and so on - that's right! But it's only one side. Such, even
such, ought to be a terror to everything that is evil; a
positive menace to the powers of evil on the earth and in the
Heavens. They ought to be there as something that stands
against all that is against the interests of the Lord -
something that tells amongst men.

Now, of course, it is not at all difficult to understand all this
when we come away from the general to the particular, and take
another look at the Lord Jesus. Well, in the last conference, we
said that His voice was like the sound of many waters. It's only
another way of saying there are many aspects of Christ; sometimes
it is very gentle, very kind, very com­passionate, very
understanding, consoling - like that. Sometimes it's reasoning,
seeking to reach understanding - see eye to eye - gentle argument,
as with Nicodemus. But sometimes, the word of His mouth was like a
sharp sword; sometimes He was like a polished shaft. And you can
see that aspect of His presence here - the point, the point was
being felt by the people around Him. And you know that a sharp
sword, or a polished shaft, is not a comfortable thing to
encounter. And how many of them cringed, shrank, and felt that
point, and that cutting and that piercing.

Really, you know, His crucifixion was very largely because of
that; their retaliation, their hatred. He was far too straight,
far too clear-cut, He was far too piercing and exposing for their
comfort. He exposed their hypocrisy. He uncovered their falsehood.
He showed up their inconsistencies and tore from them their masks.
He was a sharp sword, He was a polished shaft and He had that
effect upon everything that was false and wrong, and contrary to
God in truth, however pretentious it was. Yes, that was His
effect. And that is one aspect of the servant of the Lord, let
there be no doubt about it, and it will bring things back on us if
we are like that. There is a side of things where you must
not condone, where you must not compromise, where you must not
be gentle - your effect must be incisive.

No one can misunderstand a sharp sword, or a polished shaft;
that's some­thing that no one can misunderstand. And so it is
necessary for this aspect of Divine service to be present, it may
go altogether against your natural temperament; you want to be on
good terms with everybody. Well, remember that you may, you may by
that way, just fail to do a piece of work for the Lord. Sometimes
we have to put aside our own feelings like that, and be very
faithful, be very faithful. For I suggest to you that a sharp
sword and a polished shaft are very faithful things, very
faithful. It is speaking the truth, even if it is in love - being
faithful.

Well, all that... what I am saying, and what I could add to it,
is this: that there is a ministry to the Lord, and
from the Lord, which is of this character, and it is
clear-cut, incisive, definite, it registers, and it will have no
truck or compromise with anything that is untrue, unreal,
that is false, and that is contrary to the Lord. And after
all, after all, dear friends, our real accountableness is in
the realm of spiritual forces, isn't it? What we count for is
known best there, amongst those spiritual intelligen­ces. And oh,
how many advantages they get by our weakness and our
indefiniteness, our uncertainty; how much ground they hold because
we are not as utter as we should be on the things of God,
we are not as positive as we should be. We are wobbling, we are
weak, we are uncertain, we are indefinite, we are limping between
two opinions, and they are holding the ground. All that. I suggest
that these weapons are a contradiction to that sort of thing and
they mean that the enemy will lose ground if we are like this, if
we are really positive for God, if we are clear-cut for God, if we
are sharp as His weapons, and polished as His shafts. Well, that's
the real point here.

But then we have to ask: How can that be? On what ground can that
be? Because this kind of effectiveness, this telling
power, this incisiveness, like everything else, has a ground, a
basis. And our chapter makes that perfectly clear. I don't mean
that it's written in the chapter, but the chapter itself marks the
point which makes it possible, makes it possible for this one,
whoever he is (I think these words themselves refer to the
Messiah, however leave that) it is possible for this servant of
the Lord to say this about himself. You can't say it unless you've
got the same foundation. You have got to have the same position as
He had to say it. And so chapter 49 of Isaiah's prophecies marks
the point at which a long-standing controversy is at an end.

The history was this: Israel, the nation, had lost its position
of distinctiveness by allowing to come in the gods of the nations,
their idols and their altars, their obelisks and their asherah.
You know all that the prophets had to say about that. The
world and its gods had come in. And that had raised the
great controversy between them and the Lord. Idolatry,
which is a very big word, a very comprehensive term: idolatry - we
need not just restrict it to idols of wood and stone that the
heathen worship. Idolatry can be almost anything! And we can say
of it that it is anything that divides life with God - anything
that shares things with the Lord. Well, we come to that again in a
moment.

Now, that is what had happened in Israel, and that had raised the
big controversy as to who is the Lord? Is the Lord the
Lord and the only Lord? Are these gods also Lords? That's the big
question. The prophets fought that battle. The real battle that
they were in was just because of that. They were fighting that
whole thing. But Israel persisted. They were wedded to their
idols, and they hardened their hearts against the prophets. And at
last God said: "They are wedded, they are wedded to idols, and so,
let them go to the land where the idols are". He handed them over
to Babylon, to Chaldea - away into captivity - for seventy years!
And that did it! Those seventy years were purging fires. And
idolatry was purged out of Israel, and never again, mark you, from
that time to this very day, today, in our own life-time, has
idolatry had a place amongst the Jews, of that kind. God cut in
between them in Babylon, and so far as that kind of idolatry is
concerned, that form of idolatry, it was finished. And now this
forty-ninth chapter sees the end of that controversy; it's
settled. Who is the Lord? The Lord is the Lord. God alone is God.
The idols are nothing. So far as the Lord is concerned, He
occupies the alone place as Lord. And that's the ground, that's
the ground of triumphant warfare; that's the basis of this kind of
effectiveness.

Now, I have broadened that out as a principle: there will be a
lot more, of course, that will be said presently about Israel, but
you know that this chapter is the second half of Isaiah's book,
which looks beyond the captivity - it looks beyond the captivity.
There's a lot to be done, a lot of unsatisfactory conditions, the
Lord still has a lot of controversies, but that, after the
captivity, I am saying, after the captivity that one thing was
settled.

Now, if this one in chapter 49 is the Messiah, the
Servant, "Thou art My servant Israel, the true Israel, the
true Israel..." "in whom I will be glorified and use you in this
way as My salvation to the ends of the earth", and so on - if this
is the One, the Messiah, then again, His tremendous
effectiveness, His incisiveness, was based upon this utterness
for God; it sprang out of there being absolutely no compromise
in any direction with anything that was not for God -
there's no doubt about that.

Now, you see, God has always been against mixture, and mixture
has always been the cause and the occasion of defeat where
the people of God are concerned. Mixture! Well, was it not the
mixed multitudes that came out of Egypt that were the weakness and
the undoing of the nation in the wilderness? It says: "The mixed
multitudes murmured..." murmured. And we know that in the final
summing up, it was that murmuring that set that people aside, that
they never were allowed to go into the Land. The Apostle Paul
exhorted the Corinthians: "Neither murmur ye as some of them
murmured, and fell in the wilderness in one day". But it
was the mixed multitudes that murmured; they were the
weakness of the whole thing and the cause of their defeat and
subsequent loss. Yes, Israel's mixed multitudes. And this mixture
in Israel later, in the later period of their history, to which we
are returning, the mixture, the mixture, was the cause of their
undoing and their going into Babylon. And even when they came back
from Babylon, there was still mixture. And you know how in Ezra
and Nehemiah, the great business of those leaders, was to deal
with this state of mixture in marriage; get rid of it. The two
things that were not the same thing. And they laid themselves out
to do it, and when that was done, the people were in a strong
position.

But let us come to the Great Servant again - the Lord Jesus. It
was just this very thing that lay behind His statement: "The
prince of this world cometh to Me and hath nothing in Me".
He hath nothing, "He hath nothing - there is
nothing that belongs to him, or relates to him, or is of him, in
Me. Therefore, the prince of this world is cast out!" His victory
over the forces of evil was due to His complete purity so
far as the kingdom of Satan and all that belonged to it, was
concerned. You see, that was the battle of the wilderness,
wasn't it? During the forty days after His baptism what was
Satan trying to do? He was trying to defile, to corrupt, this One,
this Christ, by getting Him to accept this world, this
world, in its unregenerate state, in its unsaved condition; to
accept it like that as His dominion. "All this will I give
thee, if thou wilt bow down and worship me." Why? Why did Jesus
refuse it? He's not going to be the king of a corrupt world, of a
defiled world, of this world! Note, note: not only
then, but how always He was not having it. When
they would come and by force, make Him King, what did He do? Oh,
what a chance! What a chance! Hadn't He come for that? Ah, no!
When they would by force make Him King, He departed into a desert
place! I wish we could handle all our temptations to popularity
like that - a corrupt popularity.

You see, the statement about Him is so clear, and He is so true
to it: "He would not commit Himself unto them, for He knew what
was in man". And He knew perfectly well the state, the corrupt
state of this world and of the crowd, that today they would come
and make Him king by force, and tomorrow they would say: "Crucify
Him!" That is the world. If the world cannot use you for itself,
it will crucify you - that's the kind of world it is, because the
spirit of this world is to use you and everything for itself!
It's the spirit, it's the principle of the flesh, of the fallen
nature to use everything for itself. It's corrupt. And Jesus is
not having that kind of kingdom. In effect He is saying: "If I am
going to have the kingdoms of this world, and I am, I will have
them as redeemed from all iniquity, with the prince of
this world cast out - on pure ground, on holy
ground". And so He hurled the weapon of His mouth, 'the sword of
His mouth' at the tempter and said: "It is written: Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve".
That is the ground of strength - Him only! Him only! That was the
trouble with Israel, and brought Israel's downfall, because it was
not Him only!

Well, the point, dear friends, clearly is this, that strength,
incisiveness, effectiveness, victory over evil and evil forces, is
upon the basis of a heart undivided, where God is concerned: where
He is Lord, and Lord alone - and Lord alone.

So when, in principle, in principle this controversy as to what
place the Lord is to hold, and how much of the place He is to
have,
when that is settled then it is possible to say: "He hath
made my mouth like a sharp sword; He hath made me a polished
shaft, in His quiver hath He hid me". I think you see, with all
the wrappings, the principle is just this: there has got to be a
place with God where this world, this world has no place, and
where all that belongs to this world, as satan's kingdom, has no
place whatever; no place. But oh, after all, dear friends, in far
more subtle ways than you or I recognise, the enemy is always at
work, to weaken our fighting force, blunt the edge of God's weapon
in us by some kind of worldliness, some form of worldliness; for
worldliness as a principle, some link with this world, some way of
doing things as the world does it, some pandering to some worldly
interest; some way in which we use our time and our means. Oh, so
many, many different forms it takes. This world is wholly
inimical to God, it is only as you and I are
completely severed from that whole thing, in a spiritual
as well as in a practical way, shall we be a fighting weapon in
the hands of God.

And I say, that is something that the Lord very much needs. For,
after all, these symbols represent the belligerent aspect of the
service of the Lord. We're in a tremendous battle. We are going to
be beaten, defeated, and worsted, unless we are on the
right ground, the right ground. And the right ground is
the ground that the Lord Jesus was on all the time: no selfish
considerations. No personal interests to serve - that's the spirit
of the world, I repeat: the spirit of the world, because, after
all, the servant, a servant if rightly understood, just means
unselfish­ness, doesn't it? Unselfishness. It's not true to the
principle of servanthood to be using your position for your own
ends. That's a violation of servanthood. The real meaning of a
servant is one whose personal interests, considerations and ends,
have been completely subjected to the interests of the one to be
served. All gone! They just live for that one; never consider how
it affects them at all or what it matters to them. They live for
the one to whom they have given themselves as servant. It's
entirely and utterly an unselfish thing. And yet that is such a
tremendous power as seen in the case of the Lord Jesus.

Unselfishness! What a range that covers! What a range it covers!
Self-ish-ness! The only way of being delivered from it is that
Another should have completely captured the heart. Another should
have taken the place of self. And that's where the Lord Jesus was,
just there - it was Another! "I come, in the roll of the book it
is written of Me - to do Thy will, O God. Thy law is
within My heart". That's the Servant. And again, I say, what a
power He was, and has ever been in this world.

Oh, you see, it's just the reverse, isn't it, of the world! If
you're going to count for anything at all, if you are really going
to mean anything, you must be master. You really must assert
yourself; you must, really must make your presence felt; you must
be something. That's the world, and always is the world.
The world cannot understand this sort of thing, that you will ever
be anything at all if you're nothing! You will never be anything
at all unless you are something. You see what I mean? It sounds
strange, but that's just it. It cannot understand this law of the
Kingdom of Heaven, this law of real spiritual power - the meekness
of Christ. The meekness of Christ. But, like it or not, dear
friends, the most potent thing in this universe was the meekness
of Jesus Christ.

Listen! Listen! You know it; you've heard it a thousand times:
"He emptied Himself, and took upon Himself the form of a
bondslave, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself,
and became obedient unto death, yea, and the death of the Cross.
Wherefore...", for that reason, on that ground, because of
that: "God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the name which
is above every name, that, in the name of Jesus every knee shall
bow, things in heaven, things in earth, and things under the
earth. And every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord".
Is that power? That power was by way of meekness, self-emptiness,
but it's tremendous, tremendous!

Well, there it is. And all this is gathered round this idea of
service, really to count for God in a definite and incisive way in
the midst of all that is inimical to His interests, really to be
somebody who just counts for God, or a company that counts for
God, about whose registration there is no mistaking at all, and
the people who are utterly for the Lord will be like that. "He
will make them a sharp sword ... a polished shaft". A polished
shaft - that's something that is not rusty and unfit for use, but
something in His hand, in His quiver, ready to be used, The Lord
make us like that.